Random November Thoughts

Daylight Saving Time ended today. Time for us to pull out all those daylight hours we saved over the summer and use them for something fun.

Don’t forget to vote Tuesday. I don’t see how you could possibly forget — but don’t be blasé about it. The national candidates may have appeared to ignore Arkansas, but there are still important choices to be made in our state.  Vote to honor all those who fought to protect your right to vote.  I voted early.

To those friends involved in Nanowrimo … good luck with that.

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Where in the Budget Does the Newspaper Go?

What line item in the budget takes care of the newspaper? Entertainment? Miscellaneous?  Is it a necessity or a luxury?

During National Newspaper Week earlier this month, I wrote about my enjoyment of a daily newspaper – spread on the kitchen table with a cup of coffee at hand.  Or curled up on the couch working the crossword puzzle.  Reading off a computer screen, sitting in an office chair is not nearly as much fun.

(When I hear ads about being able to watch movies on a phone I try to picture Gone With The Wind or Titanic on a 2’x2′ screen.  But I digress.)

There has been speculation for the past few years that hard copy newspapers would one day be a thing of the past. We will get our news from television or Internet (shudder).

Newsweek announced recently that beginning January 2013, that magazine will be available in an online format only.

Last week, I got a form letter telling me that the “state” paper is raising rates for home delivery $10.00 a month.  That’s a 62% increase! They gave all the rising-costs-poor-economy reasons.

This is sad. I know they will lose some subscribers over this. And when circulation goes down, advertising rates follow.  They may have shot themselves in the foot.

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79th Birthday

Most goals set in my youth are realized
And closing in on eighty, that is good.
Perhaps the time has passed for long-range plans.

There are still books to write and plays to see,
Folks to hang out with and a blog to tend.
A few things I may teach and more to learn.

I’d like to know that what I’ve done will last;
A child reads a book great-great-grandma wrote
And journals inspire stories yet untold.

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Happy Newspaper Week

This week, October 7-13, is National Newspaper Week, and I support that. I take three newspapers (one online) and read them all. About the online subscription: I really prefer having the newspaper spread out on the dining table, a cup of coffee nearby. But The Beebe News is a weekly publication and by the time I get it through the mail, it ‘s a day or two old.  If you think it strange, my concern about getting the weekly news a day late, just never you mind.

I was married to a newspaper man for twenty years and this is one of my favorite stories:

In the early 50s, my husband Doyle May, worked for the Durant Daily Democrat. Durant, Oklahoma, lies just ten miles across the Red River from Texas. Texas had a three-day waiting period on marriage licenses and Oklahoma didn’t. Both had mandatory blood tests. Thus Durant, the first town across the state line with a clinic that would put the lab work on a fast track, became Elopement City.  In the time it took to see a double feature, a couple could drive to Durant, visit the clinic, find a minister or judge to pronounce them husband and wife and be back home before their parents had a clue. Even if the minister’s church required the obligatory counsel on the sanctity of marriage, not much time  (or thought) was involved in the venture.

One day in 1953, just before my husband left the office for lunch, a call came from someone in the courthouse. Jose Ferrer and Rosemary Clooney were there buying a marriage license. Jose Ferrer was an extremely talented actor of movies and stage, the first Hispanic actor to win an Oscar (for Cyrano de Bergerac). He was at the time appearing at the Dallas Summer Musicals in Kiss Me Kate. Rosemary Clooney (George’s aunt) was one of the most popular singers of the day. (The next year she would star in White Christmas with Bing Crosby, making herself immortal as far as Cable TV is concerned.) The couple had been dating for several months and all the “movie magazines” had the world wondering when they would tie the knot.  She had flown from California to visit him in Dallas and they decided that driving to a little town in Oklahoma would be a low profile way to make it official.

Doyle grabbed a camera and took off. He got there just as they were leaving the license office. Standing on the court house steps, Mr. Ferrer said to him, “Please don’t take our picture.” Doyle raised the camera (which was about the size of a shoe box) and took a shot.  He had no idea if it was good until he got back to the Democrat and spent some time in the dark room.  The picture was great, and a 21-year-old reporter from a newspaper with circulation of probably less than 2,000, scooped Hollywood.

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The Dogs Always Win

A journal entry …

I have watched America’s Got Talent all season. And I feel like I have to defend that.  The show’s a little cheesy.  Not all of the acts are cheesy, but often the judges are.  The judges, Howard Stern, Howie Mandell and Sharon Osbourne, are none of my favorite persons.  Of the three, Sharon (believe or not) is the only one actually qualified to judge talent. Her career before reality TV was mostly as a talent scout and manager.

I watched this show because I like the variety acts.  I never went online to vote, but of course I had some favorites. One was Tom Cotter, a clean stand up comic whose act was a series of really funny one-liners. I enjoyed seeing him come back week after week.

Thursday was a two-hour show featuring the announcement of the big winner of a million dollars and a Vegas show.  Tom Cotter came in second. The winner?  A dog act.  Really? “America” thought dogs jumping through hoops and walking on their hind legs was a better act for Vegas than a comic who could make people laugh without dropping an F bomb?

I’m not an animal hater. I own a dog (or vice versa) but it irritates me that the dogs always win. That was true on America’s Funniest Videos. They could show ten of the most hilarious videos possible but the audience voted for the dog peeing on a tree.

I’ll tell you something else that’s pathetic. That this is all I found to write about today.

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